TIBALDI, Pellegrino

Pellegrino Tibaldi (also Pellegrino da Bologna) was influenced by Perin del Vaga during a stay in Rome in 1547 (as seen in the decoration of the Castel Sant’ Angelo). Later he orientated towards Michelangelo.

In his Adoration of the Christ Child, 1548, Pellegrino Tibaldi surrounds the infant Jesus by a whirling crowd of worshipping figures reminiscent of the angels and the damned in the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

On the short side of the ceiling opposite to the blinded Polyphemus, between the corner ignudi, is Aelos, the master of the winds, who sent Odysseus on his way home with favourable winds. He also gave the hero a tied bag in which were trapped the adverse winds.

The young Pellegrino Tibaldi, who was one of Daniele da Volterra’s assistants in Rome, executed two murals in the newly constructed chapel of Cardinal Giovanni Poggi in San Giacomo, Bologna. The chapel, which is dedicated to John the Baptist, has an elaborate system of architectonic articulation. Tibaldi’s frescoes (The Sermon of John the Baptist; Annunciation of the Birth of John the Baptist) are restricted to one large field each on the left and right walls. The frescoes are distinguished by unconventional iconography, learned allegory, and newly invented moments in history, that are at the same time commented on by painted manifestations in the heavens.

In the right-hand mural Elizabeth is in the temple forecourt hearing of the promise of a son. Above that God in heaven is sending his messenger into the world. This bearded, flying figure is not an angel, but John himself.

This nude figure is in the corner to the right of scene 2, Polyphemus and the Flight of the Greeks. The pose and size of Polyphemus are paralleled by the two ignudi sitting outside of the image.

This nude figure is in the corner to the left of scene 2, Polyphemus and the Flight of the Greeks. The pose and size of Polyphemus are paralleled by the two ignudi sitting outside of the image.

Upon his arrival at the Escorial, Tibaldi was assigned to decorate various part of the Basilica. After frescoing the ceiling and the walls of the sagraria, a narrow place behind the high altar, he completed the frescoes in the cloister, then continued in the library, and finally completed the main altar., which contained five pictures executed by Federico Zuccaro and three new works by Tibaldi, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Martyrdom of St Lawrence.

In the Martyrdom of St Lawrence the saint is grilled to a turn by the executioner’s forked spear, resulting in a rather bizarre culinary interpretation of the text.

The cycle continues with the scene above the entry wall, in which Tibaldi tells the fateful consequence of the gift of the winds. As their ship nears their homeland of Ithaca and Odysseus sleeps, the companions, full of curiosity, open the bag of winds in secret. The escaping unfavourable winds push the ship back into the sea for new, long travels. In the foreground a relaxed Neptune, another giant, rests on his chariot, while to the left a dramatic group of horses of the sea rears up in view of the approaching winds. Neptune - without looking - controls the horses with the touch of his big toe.

The concluding fresco in the Sala di Ulisse is on the long side of the ceiling above the wall leading to the second Odysseus room, to the Stanza di Ulisse. A view opens onto the vast palace of the sorceress Circe, who transformed Odysseus’s companions into animals. Odysseus resisted her magic by means of an herb that Mercury had given him. Mercury is seen at the right, he flies off.

In this scene Odysseus escapes drowning. The sinking of the ship appears in the background. He is rescued on the isle of Calypso. When he left Calypso on a raft of his own making, he once again encountered Neptune’s storm. The sea nymph Ino Leucothea gave him her veil, which carried the hero safely through the waves.

Ino was a mortal queen of Thebes, who after her death and transfiguration was worshiped as a goddess under her epithet Leucothea, the “white goddess.”

In the concluding scene of the cycle, Odysseus has reached the land of the Phaeacians and falls imploringly at the feet of Queen Arete. She intervenes mercifully for the foreigner with her husbandKing Alcino�s. In the background Odysseus has already taken a place at the table beside the royal pair. He recounts his story and receives generous provisions for the journey home to Ithaca. The long travels are at a close.

On the short side of the ceiling, in the second scene, the blinded Polyphemus sits at the exit to his cave, his face, hideously distorted, makes him into an image of horror. Raving with pain and rage he grabs for the Greeks, who, garbed in sheep pelts, escape his spread fingers and flee out of the darkness. The pose and size of Polyphemus are paralleled by the two ignudi sitting outside of the image.

Following the slaughter of the holy cattle of the sun god, Zeus, the father of the gods, vengefully intervenes, capsizing the boat of the Greeks in a storm at sea. Odysseus sees his companions thrown to their death.

In the figure of the giant Polyphemus, whom Odysseus is ramming on the eye with a stake, Tibaldi combines the models of Michelangelo’s Adam from the Sistine ceiling and the ancient marble figure of Laoco�n.

In the dark cave, the hero’s mates stand back in fear, a sleeping dog is curled up by a warming fire.

In the dark cave, drunk and surrounded by human bones, lies the giant Polyphemus.

In the Sala di Ulisse the story of Odysseus begins in the centre image of the ceiling, which first captures the attention of those entering the room by an especially sculptural framing and through the size, force, and drama of the depiction. In the figure of the giant Polyphemus, whom Odysseus is ramming on the eye with a stake, Tibaldi combines the models of Michelangelo’s Adam from the Sistine ceiling and the ancient marble figure of Laoco�n.

The young Pellegrino Tibaldi, who was one of Daniele da Volterra’s assistants in Rome, executed two murals in the newly constructed chapel of Cardinal Giovanni Poggi in San Giacomo, Bologna. The chapel, which is dedicated to John the Baptist, has an elaborate system of architectonic articulation. Tibaldi’s frescoes (The Sermon of John the Baptist; Annunciation of the Birth of John the Baptist) are restricted to one large field each on the left and right walls. The frescoes are distinguished by unconventional iconography, learned allegory, and newly invented moments in history, that are at the same time commented on by painted manifestations in the heavens.

In the left-hand mural John is baptizing and preaching repentance, while angels in heaven are putting devils into chains.

The story started in the Sala di Ulisse with five scenes, continues above the entry wall in the Stanza di Ulisse. Odysseus is sleeping and his half-starved companions storm the countryside and steal and slaughter the holy cattle of the sun god.

An interesting detail of the fresco: a Greek in the foreground looks out and asks us to be quiet so that Odysseus does not wake. His facial expression is a variation on that of a damned man in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment fresco in the Vatican.

Giovanni Poggi (1493-1556) was a papal diplomat and financier to the Curia under Clement VII and Paul III. He was named Bishop of Tropea in 1540 and cardinal in 1551. From 1549 he was responsible for the continuation of constructing and furbishing the family palace in Bologna.

In the palace, Poggi had the halls of the piano nobile painted by Niccolò dell’Abate, Prospero Fontana, and others. They painted friezes with landscapes and grotesques, as well as numerous episodes from the Old Testament. In the ground floor, the twenty-three-year-old Pellegrino Tibaldi created the Odysseus frescoes, a major work that he would never again equal, one which even Annibale Carracci would decisively fall back upon as a model at the end of the sixteenth century.

Tibaldi’s frescoes, depicting the Adventures of Odysseus, were created in 1550-51. Poggi must have been satisfied with the decoration, since shortly thereafter he also commissioned the artist to paint his newly built family chapel in Bologna’s San Giacomo Maggiore. Tibaldi adorned the chapel with scenes from the life of Poggi’s name saint, John the Baptist.

The Odysseus frescoes adorn the vaults of two rooms. From the entry corridor of the palace one walks first into a large hall (Sala di Ulisse), where the cycle begins. One finds the continuation and conclusion in a smaller room directly adjoining the hall (Stanza di Ulisse). The ceiling articulation and the arrangement of the paintings in both rooms are oriented along the lines of a famous Roman model, Raphael’s Logge in the Vatican Palace. The scenes are inserted as ‘quadri riportati’ (framed paintings that are seen in a normal perspective and painted into a fresco). Between the fields of the painted histories, illusionistic views open onto colonnades that seem to reach up to the heaven. The framings are executed in stucco.

With their various decorative systems, each of the two rooms achieves a wholly individual character, one corresponding to its respective size and position.

The ceiling in the Sala di Ulisse contains five scenes from the Adventures of Odysseus, namely

1. Blinding of Polyphemus

2. Polyphemus and the Flight of the Greeks

3. Aelos Gives Odysseus the Bag of Winds

4. Neptune and the Ship of Odysseus

5. Odysseus and Circe

In the Stanza di Ulisse on the ground floor of the Palazzo Poggi, continues the fresco cycle of the Adventures of Odysseus, started in the Sala di Ulisse.

The ceiling in the Stanza di Ulisse contains four scenes from the Adventures of Odysseus, namely

6. Theft of the Cattle of Helios

7. Shipwreck

8. Odysseus and Ino Leucothea

9. Odysseus at the Court of the Phaeacians